Monthly Archives: September 2010

On one of the last days of summer in Berlin, we had Ólöf Arnalds join us for our fifth SoundCloud session.

Ólöf Arnalds is an Icelandic singer-songwriter on One Little Indian Records. As she was touring Europe with Davið Þór Jónsson, she stopped by the SoundCloud office to play a couple of tracks from her newly released album, Innundir skinni. She and Davið played these tracks in the beaming sun while birds chirped and flew in the background.

Are you an artist who likes giving downloads away for free but would like something (besides money) in return from your fans? What if you could exchange a social interaction which helps market your music such as a tweet on Twitter or share on Facebook for the download? This idea of “social currency” is not new, but we’ve made it very easy to do with a new open-source app call SoundCloud-Social-Download.

The app automagically rolls together interactions from four of the biggest social networks (tweet on Twitter, share on Facebook, update on MySpace, & Digg… on Digg) and throws in Email capture for good measure to make the ultimate “social for download” campaign. Once a user completes one of the required interactions, they are served up a secure download straight from your SoundCloud account.

The code is available (and completely free to use, change, etc) on the SoundCloud github. From there you’ll also find step-by-step documentation, walking you through setup, configuration, customization, and deployment. Let us know what you think and please drop us a line if you use the app. If you’re having technical issues, please submit your problem here.

Stay tuned for more open-source apps coming soon…

Did someone say Check in for Download?

P.S. If you’re a developer who is comfortable deploying these open-source apps, we’ve got a ton of SoundCloud artists who could use the help and wouldn’t mind paying for it. Let me know @LeeMartin

Lots of streaming on SoundCloud this past week! Not only do we have that for your ears, but we also have a nice article and a remix competition for you to see/check out. Let’s not delay any further and get started!

Monday:

Australian band, The Black Ryder, is streaming their album, Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride, on SoundCloud. Have a listen below!

Go on and remix Pendulum’s track “The Island”! Enter it in this competition for a chance to win a major label release, £500 cash, £150 worth of Juno Download vouchers, and a Pro account! Get all the details here!

Another album stream! New York based rapper, Hoodie Allen, released Pep Rally last week. You can hear the album in its entirety below or check out his page!

Thursday:

If you’re a Gowalla user and are planning on seeing Jimmy Eat World during their upcoming tour, check out this cool new app powered by SoundCloud and Gowalla. When you check in to a location, you get a free download. Learn more here! And just as a bonus to this blurb, listen to a live version of “Goodbye Sky Harbor” below!

Friday:

NME magazine gave SoundCloud some sincere love on Friday. Here’s a quote from their post:

This has come off sounding a little like a press release. It’s not meant to. They’re not paying me or anything. I just thought it was time to shine some light on a music service that has picked up an enormous number of users, without attracting much – yet – in the way of media hype.